Ute Carbone's Blog, page 14

Announcing Sweet Auralie!

It's time to break out the birthday cake and funny hats! I'm pleased to announce the arrival of my latest book, Sweet Auralie. This is the last part of Anton and Lenora's story, which began with Sweet Lenora and continued through two more novellas,  To the Wind and All Things Returned. 
The series represents a lot of firsts for me--it's the first time I've written a series, for one. It's also the first time I've written something in a time other than our own.  
This book, set in the mid-eighteen hundreds, takes the reader on both a physical and an emotional journey. It begins with a trip to Shanghai and ends with a race around the tip of South America in hopes of breaking the speed record from Boston to San Francisco in a sailing vessel. As Anton and Lenora face challenges, the love they share strengthens and grows. In the end, it becomes the very heart of a legacy.
I hope you enjoy this last installment of the Sweet Lenora series and all the other Sweet Lenora books.
You can purchase an e-copy at these locations:
All Romance e-books_
​Amazon
Champagne Books
​Barnes and Noble_

#8Sunday First Lines--Sweet Auralie

Welcome back to #8Sunday, the weekend writing warrior's blog hop where writers post eight to ten sentences of their work.  Since we often talk about the importance of opening lines, I've been posting the openings of my books over the past few months.  What better way to finish this series of openers than with the first lines of my brand new book. 
Sweet Auralie is the final book of the Sweet Lenora series. Unlike the other three books in the series, it's a full length novel rather than a novella. It begins where the last novella, All Things Returned, leaves off, with the hanging of Cyrus Abercrombie, hated former first mate on the Sweet Lenora. Anton Boudreaux narrates this part of the story--

​ The sun shone bright the morning of the hanging as though it were a perfect day for a picnic. When I had ridden past the public square with Lenora’s brother, Edward, the day earlier, there were already booths being hammered together by local merchants making ready to sell their wares at the spectacle.
“Will you attend?” Edward asked.
“I would not like to put Lenora through such an ordeal,” I answered. I should myself have liked to see Cyrus Abercrombie receive the justice he so richly deserved, but I did not hold with turning sober occasions into celebration.
“Aye. We shall stay home as well.” I wondered if Edward might have gone had he not wanted to protect his wife, Meifeng.
​“You are quite right, ladies should not be subjected to such things. Perhaps no one should.” Sweet Auralie releases as an e-book tomorrow, October 5.  You can preorder it on Amazon Find your next great read! Check out all the authors at the #8Sunday Blog Hop Read More About Sweet Auralie

#8Sunday:Opening Lines All Things Returned

Welcome to #8Sunday, the Weekend Writing Warriors  blog hop where writers share eight to ten sentences of their work. For the past few months, I've been sharing the opening lines of my books and for the last few weeks, I've been sharing the openings of the Sweet Lenora Series. Today's eight are from the beginning of All Things Returned, the third novella of the series. Anton and Lenora have settled into life in San Francisco, and things are pretty darn good. Of course, life won't stay idyllic for long. 



Anton pulled off his cravat for the second time. “Foolish speck of clothing—like to choke the life out of a man.”
     He fumbled with it until I took the scrap of silk and tied it around his neck, sealing my action with a kiss. “You should try wearing a corset.”
     “I think we should pull off all of these confounded garments and run about like babes in Eden,” he said, nuzzling my neck.
     I dearly would have liked to take his suggestion. “We have to attend. For our own sakes and for Edward’s.”
more All Things Returnedmore about the Sweet Lenora SeriesSweet Auralie, the last part of the Anton and Lenora story,  will be released on October 5. Come back next week for a sneak peek of the opening.Stop by at Weekend Writing Warriors and check out the other author's #8Sunday

#8Sunday--Opening Lines To the Wind

Welcome back to #8Sunday, the weekly blog hop where writers post eight to ten sentences of their work. I've been doing a series featuring the opening eight to ten lines of my books. Over the next few weeks, I'll be featuring the Sweet Lenora series of novellas. I've got a final, full length sequel to these three short books coming out in October, so I'll end the series with the opening lines of the new novel.
This week, I'm featuring To the Wind, the second book of the novella series. In this novella, a continuation of Sweet Lenora, Anton narrates the story. 

The world is a wicked place, full of lies and deceit. A man must stand strong against the force of evil, lest he perish. So I thought before Lenora came into my life. She was an angel, appearing in a moment’s time upon the deck of Sweet Lenora, the ship named for her. The ship I commanded. She seemed so fragile a creature I knew I must protect her from the world. And protect her I vowed to do for all my days on this earth. I had locked my heart away in a box of iron, but Lenora broke the seal and set my poor heart free.more about the Sweet Lenora Seriesmore about To the WindFind your next great read! Visit all the blogs on the Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop.

Vote for me! Please?

Nope, I'm not running for president. But two of my books, The Tender Bonds and Confessions of the Sausage Queen, have qualified for round two of The Romance Review's readers choice awards. And this is where you. dear reader, come in. Like the folks running for president,  I need nominations. Fifty of them per book to be exact, to make it into the next round.  If you'd take a moment to click on the cover of one, or both books and then nominate them, I'd be most grateful. Besides, how can you say no to this face ? "Black Labrador Pup" by John Schanlaub - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

Hitting the Pause Button

Cape Cod Bay My husband, Jim, and I were stuck in traffic on route 3 last Sunday. The cars inched forward at a frustrating crawl, the hot sun bouncing off  metal roofs and smacking the windshield. The air conditioner, thankfully, pushed cool air through the car's interior so we wouldn't feel the ninety plus degrees with oppressive humidity in the exterior world.
Then, the traffic broke, we moved forward again. Soon we could see the gleaming arch of the Sagamore bridge, gateway to Cape Cod. 
Somewhere along the apex of the bridge a minor miracle happened. All the tension I'd been carrying left the spot it occupied along the back of my neck and tumbled down past the rails into the vein of blue water below. Cape Cod always seems to have this effect on me. On Jim, too. It's why we come, for a few days, for a week, to lay back and let the world roll on without us for a while. 
Soon, we were at a favorite haunt, Rock Harbor in Orleans. The tide was low, the sandbars stretching for a what seemed like a forever distance. We walked the line of funky trees that mark the way into the harbor, a half mile line of pines stuck out in the sand, uncovered now to be immersed in salt water again in six hours time. A breeze swept over the bay and beach, rustling the beach grass and cooling the late summer heat. In the water between sandbars, minnows tickled our ankles. 
We did all the requisite things, ate fried clams and ice cream, went to the wide open beach at Nauset and watched seals dip and dive in the cold water, shopped at our favorite t-shirt emporium. Mostly, we hit the pause button, found a time out from all the stresses of day to day life.
If I could, I would put those Cape moments into a big blue box and keep it with me here in the garret. I'd open it now and again to remind myself to take a deep breath, pause and remember the endless blue sky, the feeling of calm, the way stress can fall to the ocean and dissolve into the salt.

#8Sunday--Opening Lines Sweet Lenora

Welcome back to #8Sunday, the weekly blog hop where writers post eight to ten sentences of their work. I've been doing a series featuring the opening eight to ten lines of my books. Over the next few weeks, I'll be featuring the Sweet Lenora series of novellas. I've got a final, full length sequel to these three short books coming out in October, so I'll end the series with the opening lines of the new novel.
This week, I'm featuring Sweet Lenora, the first book of the novella series. Lenora Brewer has just lost her father and she's about to go on a journey that changes her life.



On the day of my father’s funeral, the gray October sky opened and shed copious tears. It was good that the sky was so willing to cry as I could not find my own sorrow. It seemed I buried
it upon learning of his death.
We stood around the gravesite as he was laid next to the mother I had never known. My Aunt Louise looked up now and again from under the awning of her black umbrella to insure herself
that I had not jumped in after the coffin or run off into the rain. To Aunt Louise, I was a spoiled and fractious child, not a young woman of twenty with a mind of my own.
“High time you found her a husband,” she had said to Father on more occasions than I cared to count. “It will not do to let her run wild.”Read more about Sweet LenoraFind your next great read! Check out all the writers on the #8Sunday blog hop. 

A little bit of #poetry--About Van Gough

I've written a lot of poems over the years. They are gifts, of sorts, to myself. I'm reminded to read through them now and again.  Some time ago, I wrote a series of pieces about Van Gough's paintings.  Here's one of them:

About Van Gough
It was never about the splash of fire
in the petals of sunflowers,
or the midnight sky circling
a starry night. 
Nor was it the incessant babbling of color
that filled an empty canvas with lilies and hay.

No, always
it was something mirrored
in the startled faces of coal miners
as they climbed out of the darkness they ingested daily
leaving the earth
for the painful brilliance of sun. 

#8Sunday Opening Lines-The Lilac Hour

Welcome to #8Sunday, the weekly blog hop where writers post eight to ten sentences of work. Over the past weeks, I've been featuring the opening lines of my stories. This week's opener is from The Lilac Hour, the first and title story of my short story trilogy. The narrator is 85 year old Sarah Snow, whose husband died when they were young. The tone is meant to be nostalgic, with a hint of sweetness. 


We called it the lilac hour. The name came from my Aunt Delilah, who had a jungle of lilacs in her backyard near the harbor. Every spring, they would open their fragrant buds of deep purple and gentle pink. And so it was that I pointed out those same colors to Zeke as the sun finished dipping deep into the bay and Zeke said, “Yes, the lilac hour.”

We were young then, Zeke and I, new to marriage and still a little reckless, and I thought the term highly romantic.

That spring, Zeke gathered lilacs, bushels of them, from Delilah’s garden and put the petals on our bed. Still dreaming, I awoke to the stubble of his beard grazing my neck and the delicious sweetness rising from those buds. I’ve never been able to pass a lilac bush without thinking of him, and the tenderness of early love. I’ve spent my life looking to find that moment again, that one perfect moment, of lilacs.
Read More about The Lilac Hour hereFind your next great read! Check out all of the writers at Weekend Writing Warriors #8Sunday

#8Sunday Opening Lines--Blueberry Truth

Welcome to Sunday Eight, a blog hop in which writers post eight to ten lines of their work.  Since we often talk about the opening lines of our stories, I've been doing a series that features my opener.
Today, I'm going all the way back to my debut novel, Blueberry Truth. In the beginning, Beanie is waiting for husband Mac to come home. He's late, as usual. 

Johnny Mathis has sung “Chances Are” four times now, and chances are not awfully good Mac will be home anytime soon. I try to be sympathetic; Mac is a pediatric cardiologist. His high-pressure job has irregular hours, and he’s stood me up before, though always with good reason. Mac wouldn’t be Mac if he didn’t go the extra mile for his patients. But despite all his good intentions, I’m about ready to throttle him.
He’s not the only one who’s got a tough job. I teach seven-to nine-year-olds at St. Luke’s, a school for children labeled “at risk.” Like Mac, I love my work. But I’ve had a hard day, too.More about Blueberry TruthFind your next great read!  Check out the #8Sunday blog hop.